Gabby Logan

Hello and welcome to The Midpoint.

My guest today was one of the best things to come out of the global pandemic.

Her online feminist poetry certainly had a following, but it was her 2020 poem of gratitude, which was used as a poem to thank the NHS, which sent her career into orbit.

She's since become a Sunday Times bestseller.

She's the UK's number one selling living poet and her daily social media offerings to her 2 million followers often feel like a morning hug.

I am delighted to welcome Donna Ashworth to The Midpoint.

Donna, it is an absolute joy to have you on The Midpoint.

I say in your introduction that you, I guess, are one of the great positives of lockdown.

Does it feel like that's where things changed for you?

When you were allowed to.

As somebody who is the best-selling living poet, it seems remarkable that you had another life, you know.

So tell us a bit about pre-lockdown.

Yeah.

So you were in this state of flux and change and not knowing what was going to happen in the world.

Is this where the words started to flow?

And then you wrote the poem to the NHS.

do this maybe this could be my life maybe this is a thing so how much writing had you been doing and how much were you absorbed by poetry in the years before when you were running the ball pit play centre not at all not at all

I'm sure you almost.

It probably was a sliding door you were about to open and then something else happened.

Do you not hear what I said there?